


Paintings

by Gabu



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Amnesia, Death, Drabbles, Fluff and Angst, Original Character(s), Short Stories, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, feels up the wazoo, goals achieved, hangovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-11
Updated: 2016-10-07
Packaged: 2018-07-22 21:51:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 20,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7455202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gabu/pseuds/Gabu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A bunch of drabbles and short stories as Dipper and Mabel rebuild their sibling relationship after being separated for ten long years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Death

**Author's Note:**

> Hello there! Not so good with introductions, but when I finished Last Thing, I mentioned that I wanted to write a bunch of short stories about what happened after the fact and keep them generally collected in one or two other fics. I don't think I'll keep a strict chronological order with these, but I would still prefer to keep them as in order as I can. And again, I also want to use these as an opportunity to experiment with writing.
> 
> I don't know what I'm saying I'm tired.
> 
> Anyway, I wrote this first one as a possible alternate ending to Last Thing, but ultimately decided to keep to an optimistic ending after everything that Dipper's been through. That should say a lot in how this story pans out in general, though whether the ending to this was tacked on or not I've no clue.

You feel very sick and very cold.

Fate would once again, as the seasons twice turned, leave you in the middle of a cold snap with little in the way of appropriate clothing and belongings. All you really have in the world is a light jacket over your miserably grimy jade shirt, and your old splint more or less permanently affixed to your crippled ankle. You've had everything else stolen one way or another, minus your wallet in an ever greater streak of luck for the item. Damn that wallet.

You succumb to another violent fit of coughing, and you try your best to clear your throat once it passes, but it is thick in mucus and weak by infection. Nothing escapes your larynx but an airy whisper with only the lightest peppering of gravel. The hidden fever drains your will to do anything, leaving you laying near the mouth of an alley and your stomach empty for two days straight. It's not like you can't eat, but you are unable to beg like you've gotten used to doing these five months.

Regardless, your body is faint from hunger, and your heart stumbles and strives to beat the hardest it possibly can to supply oxygen to you, tapping into the last reserves of fatty energy before it is forced to start eating your muscles. Between that and breathing and coughing, you lose touch with the outside world just five feet away from your post.

Again, you've stopped shivering, and again you're barely conscious in this dusky hour. The simple act of staying alive is such a massive goliath of a task, is such a burden on your dying heart, that you hope tonight is the night you go. Beyond your hypothermia, you're sweating out a fantastic, phantasmic fever. You want this to finally end.

"Sir, are you alright?"

You open your glazed eyes and glance upwards to a brunette woman. She brushes your slimy hair gently with finessed digits, and she's hurt by your condition. "Oh my goodness, you're sweating, but you're so cold..."

She flinches back when you suffer another round of coughing, yet strives to sit you up once it ends and you're wheezing for air. It's even harder to breathe now than it was before, and your vision goes dark. A vaguely sweet scent wafts into your stuffy nose and sensing food just beyond you reach forward, mouth agape, and weakly bite into whatever it is this kind woman is offering you. It's a granola bar. You chew the bite, swallow, then open your mouth to signal to her to keep feeding you.

The bar is precious food. When your vision comes back and find you've taken the last bite, you're almost beside yourself when she pulls out another from her bag for you to eat. You can hear nothing outside of that deep, chaotic bass of your heart-thrums, but once the second bar is consumed she lifts you upright and slumps you around her shoulders.

"Gonna take you back home now. There's no way you're sleeping out here tonight. Not with the weather and especially not with this nasty sickness of yours." She smiles to you. "It's gonna be okay."

It's hard to walk. You can't balance well on your bad ankle anymore. Before you got sick your hobbling had been slowly deteriorating from the lack of any real medical attention or therapy. Now, unless it is kept in your stiff splint at all times your ankle howls pitifully and endlessly and simply cannot bear weight. The dizziness from the lack of nutrition, illness and your poor heart has your savior practically carry you the two blocks to her apartment building. She appears perfectly able to drag you back like this though. You think you might be disconcertingly underweight, or otherwise she's just that strong.

She carefully guides your stiff form through the threshold, into and out of an elevator, and through another threshold to her abode. It gets warmer and warmer with each doorway passed, but you're still hypothermic and unable to shiver.

"Okay, sir, you're almost there." She soothes with that melodic reassurance. "We're gonna get you a blanket, get you a bed to rest on, and help out any way we can. Would you want something warm to drink?"

You try so hard to speak, but that rusted out voice-box fails you, and so you bob your head downward and hope she understands that you would. When she opens the door, there is already someone else inside, and once those initial seconds pass, this man breathes irritation.

"Who is this?"

"Don't know. Doesn't look like he can talk, Dustin. Gonna call him Joe in the meantime." No. No more fake names, please.

"Why'd you bring him here?"

"He's really sick and cold, very hungry... needs a bath too. Also probably very tired and..."

The man sputters and shouts. "Why did you bring a sick bum into our apartment?!"

"I couldn't just leave him there!" Her shouting hurts your stuffy ears. "This guy's got nowhere to go, and he'd already been freezing to death!"

"No. I'm not allowing this! You know how I can't _stand_ sick people!"

"That's silly! You will too allow this! It's almost Christmas and I'm the only one who decided to give this man help when he needed it most! Did anyone else stop to help Joe? No, they didn't!"

"What if we wake up the next morning and we're robbed again?" The man growls.

"I don't think this man would even think about doing something like that in the state he's in. So move over and make the futon already! Putting my foot down right here, right now, Dustin!"

"Goddamm... fine."

You hear him slam his book onto a coffee table and start pulling out the bed out from the couch he had just been sitting on. Your coughing and sniffling is the only other noise in the tense apartment air, but you're too lethargic in feeling anything towards the heightened domestic situation. Immediately after the bed is set up, she drags you over and lies you down, and soon you're swaddled in thick quilts and blankets and given some reheated soup in a mug to carefully eat.

By the minute, you become vaguely stronger, though you still wish to do absolutely nothing except to stop the shivering your body has become enslaved to now that it's warming up. Sweat drips from your brow especially, and she draws a hand to your head.

"He's still colder than he should be, Dusty."

"Mmn..." You hear him carefully approach and bend down to you. "Open your mouth, man."

Bright light tears your eyes asunder when you dare to open them. He tells you again, and you obey. "Okay, say 'ahh'." You give it your best shot. "...Guess you really aren't faking."

Your shivering is soon as spasmodic and violent as your coughing. As your heartbeat. You've shrunk back into weakness. Hell is raking your body with its jagged teeth as the hypothermia lifts through the evening and a terrible fever rises up.

Sweat clings to your clothing, and bugs crawl about your limbs and trunk. Responding, this kind woman and her husband removes a quilt, gives you an aspirin, and administers some cough syrup that you keep swatting away until that man holds your arms down and the woman force-feeds the dose.

The one comfort that can be gleaned is the woman staying loyally steadfast by your side, stroking your hair so gently that when your individual strands of hair break away from her fingers you are distracted by your pain by how nice it feels. You gaze into her eyes stupidly, and they ring as something familiar to you. She grins at you softly when she notices your eyes are focused onto her.

"Heh-heh," She chuckles. "You remind me of my brother whenever he got sick. He would always become so helpless, because he never liked doing anything until he was better, so of course the big doofus never took care of himself." The woman's usually happy disposition changes as she waxes nostalgic, and it hurts when she sighs. "Joe, I haven't seen him in over ten years. Don't know if I'll ever see Dipper again."

Your heart leaps when it hears your name, and you shoot your prone body to a sitting position. It's enough to have your chest roar, and you grasp through your jacket to where the fire is burning.

She grabs onto your arm. "Oh gosh, sir! Are you okay? Can you show me what's wrong?"

Your clenched hand warps the fabric of your jacket, and you try so hard to rise above the agony so you can clear your throat and say her name. Mabel. You can't, and so you mouth her name instead.

"...Table? You want something from the table?" She looks over her shoulder. "The water, is that it?"

Your eyes are screwed tightly shut, which you'd rather prefer because your eyes are rolling so hard. Not from your sister misunderstanding you. Actually, it's from your heart beating with what feels like a tear ripped right through the middle over and over and ov-oh God, it really fucking hurts!

Your lips touch what feels like a drinking glass, and you instinctively open your maw and drink the refreshingly cool water given to you. Your heartbeat calms down and stops screaming, opting instead for gurgles and moans. When you open your eyes, your vision has faded to a grayscale, almost, and your sister is starting to nudge you back down by the shoulder blade.

"Everything's gonna be fine, Joe. You're gonna be okay. Just get some rest," She pauses. "Would you want a cool bath, though? Are you feeling up to it?"

Bath. A bath sounds too much, but it sounds so nice. Dumbly, you nod.

"He's not having a bath, Mabel. He's way too sick for that." That man objects.

"Joe said he wanted one, so he's gonna get one. Right, Joe?" She nudges your shoulder. "Right? You could use a little bit of hygiene. I mean, it wouldn't hurt."

Again, you nod, and Mabel runs out of your view. You can vaguely hear the bathtub's faucet come to life and the basin being filled with what you hope is lukewarm water. The man sits down and scoots his seat away from you when you're hit with another round of painful coughing. It's much shorter than before, quelled substantially thanks to medication, but you drowsily gawk at the man and notice he's deeply disturbed nonetheless. You don't think he can tell that this latest round has triggered your heart to spasm about. To him, the pain engraving throughout your face is from the coughing.

When Mabel returns she sits you back up and contorts your body in odd directions as she peels the jacket and shirt off of your body, then wrestles your jeans, socks and splint off. While you might be very sick, your modesty is still intact, and you protectively grab your boxers and grimace.

"All right, all right," Mabel smiles and laughs, then lifts you upright.. "I won't completely undress you. C'mon, time to get y-"

Your breathing hitches and an unusually loud croak bursts from your throat when you are led to your feet, injured ankle first. Mabel is disturbed at your poor attempt at a shout, and of the pain she's caused, but struggles to help your cold, trembling self over to the bathroom. The man breaks, and decides against his own feelings to help out. You don't think that you've ever been treated to this amount of kindness in such an astoundingly long time, and your knees buckle onto the bathroom's ceramic tile.

"Woah, you okay?" The man asks. "C'mon, just a little farther."

They drag you the last couple of feet to the basin. You don't fight when the man takes off your boxers for you like you did for Mabel. You're simply too incredibly weak to do anything other than cooperate with a stranger for the sake of a bath. The water is warm, almost too much for your liking at first, but it's stopping your chills so gently that your face relaxes, beyond the failing cries of your heart, and you smile contentedly.

"We'll check on you every five minutes. Make sure you're doing alright. Okay?" Mabel asks.

You nod, open your mouth and fight with every ounce of strength you have to speak. "Th-...thank... you..."

Your voice sounds like sandpaper, and uttering those words clearly was an accomplishment. Your sister brushes some lock of hair out of your face, smiles, then leaves you to your privacy.

You simply adore that smile. It's sticking in your feverish mind. It's making a home in your brain like a cat curling up right by the fireplace. Admittedly, cleaning yourself is something that you cannot do now. That walk from the living room fifteen or twenty feet away turned out to have seriously drained you, which is odd, given you had walked several blocks some time earlier with much less food in your body. You can't do much other than remain half-melted in this bathtub, sliding slowly down until the bath water just about laps at your chin.

But it's okay. It'll be alright. That compressed, constricting sensation in your chest is releasing and leaving your heart. It feels so calmed now, and that freeing sensation convinces you you're bathing in radiant, golden light.

You've found Mabel, and she assumes that she's helping some stranger as it is. There's a feeling that she's going to check your wallet to figure out your actual name. Maybe she'll find the bundle in the back, and leaf through them backwards in time until she sees Dipper, and realize you and him are one and the same. If not, you'll have to be sure to show her when you finish bathing.

Yeah, and once you show Mabel who you are things are all going to be...

They'll be fine... yeah... you'll be... fine...

You're going to get through this illness...

your heart is going to mend...

you'll be in good health...

you're completely at peace...

...things will be...

...you'll be...

...you...

...

...

..

.

\---

 

"Don't you think it might be a good idea to get him to a hospital? He's in real bad shape, Mabel."

Mabel groans, shakes her head dejectedly, then sighs. "I... Not gonna lie, Dusty, I kind of want to take care of him and bring him back to health. I... really don't know _why_. You're right though, he needs actual medical help, but..."

"Yeah?"

"I dunno, but he really does remind me of Dipper."

Dustin chuckles. "Ahh-ha... now it all makes sense."

"I mean, Joe's acting the very same way Dipper would when he got sick, and Joe also looks so much like him."

"Still... might want to think what's best for Joe. He's gonna need antibiotics, gonna need something done to his ankle, gonna need a lot of food and care until he gets better from whatever the hell he's got, or else he's gonna die."

"I know. He needs something better than this," Mabel sighs. "So should we get a cab, or call an ambulance or...?"

"Ambulance sounds better. He absolutely can't walk, and it's probably a bad idea to bring him outside in his state with how cold it is."

"Alright," Mabel looks at the pair of discarded jeans, then picks them up and roots through the pockets.

"What're you doing?"

"Well, he can't talk either. He's gonna need us to tell the doctors his name. Honestly, I don't think he's going to mind too much if I take a look."

Dustin stares at his wife while she pulls out a wallet, shrugs, then pulls out his cell phone and makes the call. "Alright, then. Guess I can't argue with that."

Mabel opens the wallet, and is met with a card in a windowed holder. "Says here he's Colin Gates."

"Thanks, Mabes." There is a short pause. "Yes, hello. We have a very sick homeless man in our home and we think he needs to get to a hospital ASAP."

Mabel stares at the wallet, and it's weird to her that such a desolate wreck of a man has a particularly thick wallet. As much as she hates the idea of snooping around even further, there's is a strange compulsion towards that very action. She thinks that this might be intuition towards the man holding something devious. Maybe cash? Perhaps drugs? No, Colin could never be like that, could he?

The billfold is empty, but the pouch behind the ID window is stuffed. Mabel has a difficult time pulling these plastic cards out of the wallet, and when she does she stares at the front-most card in confusion.

"Wait a minute, Dusty. This card says something different."

Dustin, who had been talking to the dispatcher on the other line, turns back to Mabel. "Different card?"

"Yeah," Mabel flips through them slowly. "Oh wow. This guy's been using a bunch of fake names. Calvin, Peter, Robert, Benj..." Mabel pauses in her truncated list. "Holy... oh my gosh." She then reaches the very last card.

"What's wrong?" Dustin asks.

Matthew Harris. Mabel places a hand over her mouth, and stares amazedly at the little photograph on the Nevada state ID. Sans birthmark, Matthew looks exactly like Dipper.

"Holy crap, it is! It's Dipper!"

Dustin has no time in asking Mabel what she is talking about as she bounds towards the bathroom, the one thing he can do is communicate to the dispatcher what is happening, making it clear that he's confused as to what his wife is talking about.

"Dipper! Dipper! Hey, Dip, guess what? I found you!"

Mabel bursts into the bathroom, and slides on her knees to her brother, her smile ready to tear off her face as she gives a massive hug.

"Oh my gosh! I can't believe it, but I really found you!" Mabel takes note that Dipper seems a little limp. "Hey bro-bro? Dipdop? ...You're probably exhausted from being cold and sick and without a place to stay for so long! I get it. Just rest up, okay? We're gonna get you to a doctor so they can help you back to one-hundred percent Dipper Pines! You'll be... you'll... Dip? You okay?"

Mabel loosens the grip she has on Dipper, and realizes that he's too limp. She pulls back, and looks into his blank, content face. Mabel is worried, then horrified, then slaps her brother in the face as hard as she can in a panic.

"Dip?! Dipper? Dipper! What's wrong?! ...Dustin! Dustin, something's wrong with Dipper! He's not responding!"

"What do y-"

"Get in here!"

Fast footfalls, then her husband is right by her side. "Oh, God..." He pulls the phone up to his face. "I... he's gotten a lot worse! I... it doesn't look like he's breathing! ...Mabel, check his pulse!"

Mabel obeys without objection, then reels back in terror a handful of tense seconds later. "I can't feel one!"

"Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit! Get him out of the tub! Dry him off!"

Dustin practically tosses his phone away helping in pulling Dipper out and getting him dry. Not much more could be said to the confused dispatcher on the other line. All of the towels are used to swaddle Dipper up in a vain effort to keep him warm. Mabel strokes Dipper's mussed, wet hair, mumbling to him that things are going to be fine, that he's just very, very sick and needs professionals to take care of him.

Dustin, however, after groping about Dipper's arms and neck, frowns and shakes his head. "I'm so sorry, Mabel. He's... I think he died."

"What? No! He can't! I-I won't let it!"

For the first minutes, Dustin tries talking sense into Mabel while she desperately starts and clings onto her attempt at CPR. She knocks Dustin back when he tries prying her off of her brother, wanting to hold onto that fading glimmer of hope that Dipper was going to be fine.

When it hits her, though, that's when she stops trying. That's when she breaks apart, begins sobbing into Dustin's shoulder. It wasn't supposed to be like this!

And when the paramedics arrive, your ghost watches in a grieving horror as they enter the bathroom, and see three people on the floor; a man hugging a woman, while the woman has one arm draped across this man's shoulders, and her free hand grasping pitifully to the hand of your dead body.

...

Then it goes dark, and Mabel wakes up panting and sweating. She sits up, but is petrified over the events that transpired until Dustin is well back into the lullaby of sleep. Mabel carefully moves out of bed and treads softly out of this frigid bedroom, then peeks ever so cautiously past the door into another bedroom, fearful that she might see something different.

There's a desk, drawer, an old office chair and a warm bed containing a lump that is gently rising and falling. Mabel tiptoes to this form, and turns on the desk lamp. It's him. She climbs into bed and awakens him.

"Wh... Mabel?"

"Had a real bad dream where you didn't come back to us until winter and you were real sick. I wanted to make sure you were still..." Mabel trails off.

Silence, and then Dipper schooches himself as leftward as he can so to make room. He understands in some capacity what had happened.

"I'm not disturbing you, am I?"

"What? No, Mabel. I get it completely," Dipper shifts and collects his fair share of blanket. "Nightmares suck. I'm just surprised I'm not the one coming to you tonight like usual."

"Haha. I know, right?" Mabel collects her blanket, and tucks herself in. "Thanks, Dipper. Good night."

"Night, Mabel."

Soon, the snoring that had been interrupted resumes. Mabel listens to this little noise her brother is making, and it aids much in soothing her jangled nerves. It is through listening to Dipper's snores that Mabel becomes lulled into sleep about half-an-hour later. And when Mabel wakes up the next morning, she finds all that twitching and drooling Dipper is making in his sleep to be adorable and the best kind of wake-up call.

Dipper is safe, and lying right next to her. He's alive and hale. Nothing's wrong with him, and he's not going anywhere anytime soon.


	2. Mistakes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which I dabble with third-person limited some more, this time featuring ~~my own original character Blanic~~ Dustin.

"Dipper? Dipper! Hey, Dipper! Where are you?"

Dustin was irritated, to say the least. His brother-in-law was making him miss a very rare, relaxing Friday night off from slapping gaudy makeup on an actor for an umpteenth performance of some musical he could honestly care less about. He didn't send a text to Mabel after his class ended as per agreement, and the longer that absence sat, the more panicked Mabel became. She lobbed text after text to Dipper, begging for a response, but got none. It was near the four hour mark that Mabel couldn't take it anymore, bundled up, and forced Dustin to do the same and head outside with her to go searching for him.

It was very frustrating to Dustin that this happened. He's supposed to come into work tomorrow, so this time off was precious. And Dipper never told them of the extent of his memory problems until after the fact, possibly being too ashamed to reveal them and wanting to pull an air of normalcy. If the past was any indication, this was another, albeit unusual case of Dipper forgetting things again.

He apparently had remembered his phone today, though, which was good. About a month before it took until 3 AM and a police call to find him because he not only forgot to bring his phone, but had a bad lapse on top of it.

Since then, three rules were put into place: Dipper had to keep his phone on him at all times, he was to text after class or work, and if he didn't have his phone to wait for either Dustin or Mabel to escort him home. And Dipper certainly had his phone; There was a full sweep of the apartment and repeated calls just in case it was under something, but his phone never vibrated, rang, or otherwise appeared.

Dustin knew Dipper was embarrassed with his memory peculiarities, particularly waking up from sleep and thinking he was under an old persona. The other day he had thought he had crashed in a stranger's apartment after bugging out of Peter's livelihood until Mabel rushed into his room and got his panicking self calmed and reorientated.

Dustin had to admit, it had to really suck having all these gaps in memory, sudden losses, promising gains that disappeared overnight, needing to rely on all these tools to help aid him; At least once or twice a week, oftentimes more, Dipper would have a lapse in the middle of his day, confused as to the what and why he was doing what he was doing, where he was, and at the most severe, who he was, though more of in acting persona than general concept.

It was likely, then, Dustin surmised, his brother-in-law had a critical lapse and was probably wandering about like an idiot. And if that was the case, it was high time to drag a doctor into this. If it wasn't, it was still a good time to get his brother-in-law some actual medical help on this, before he was driven totally insane by this crap.

But what could a doctor do, exactly? Dustin guessed they could run tests, do some scans, see where the exact problem was, if it could be traced down to a single area, but then what? There's no medication that could be taken to fix it, could it? Supplements may be some help, but not to Dustin's desired extent. And there'd always be side effects to worry about...

Dustin had nearly missed him having all of these thoughts take precedence in his mind. By pure chance, he had looked deep into the belly of this particular alleyway and noticed a prone body with a very familiar outline.

"Oh, man. Really, Dipper?"

There he was, passed out with a half-drunk bottle of scotch. He was completely lying on the ground, eyes closed, looking fairly pale and breathing slowly. Dustin knelt down and lightly smacked his friend with a concerned hand on the cheek. Dipper moved a little bit, opened his eyes briefly, but succumbed to the thick alcohol in his veins. Dustin pulled out his cell phone and started tapping the screen to shoot some messages out to his wife.

found him

he's pretty plastered rn

>what???

passed out

> D:!!!

doesn't look like poisoning but he's fn drunk

> oh god why dip

gonna try to get him back home

meet me there

love you <3

The phone was placed back into his back pants pocket, with all future buzzing ignored, and Dustin rapped his hand once more on Dipper's cheek.

"Hey, man. Hey. Dipper?"

"Mmrunh?" Again, eyelids fluttered open, but this time they had remained open, to the best of their ability.

"We're going home. C'mon."

Dustin groaned from the intense exertion put forth in his thin, delicate arms just sitting Dipper up. Dipper appeared to be coming to, at least physically, but his eyes were blanks.

"Hey, man, don't look at me like that." Dustin was putting in effort to sound encouraging. "C'mon, let me know you're here."

"Dust...?" Dipper squinted as his sluggish brain keened towards conscious awareness; His mouth hung open.

"Yeah, Dipper." Dustin closed that hanging maw for him. "Taking you home now."

"No... please. I... can n't. No."

Dustin's sober reflexes picked up the scotch bottle much faster than his inebriated brother-in-law. Dipper reached awkwardly towards the container, his dulled nerves only weakly grasping at the neck before he let his whole body become limp and collapse into Dustin's.

"Woah, what's gotten into you?"

The bottle was set down, and Dustin used a free foot to deftly kick it into a wall before Dipper could try getting his hands on it again. It cracked and the precious hard liquor started to bleed out. In this position Dustin could feel Dipper's heart slowly work; It appeared to be steady, but its sluggishness caused some worry to emerge.

"Let you guys down..."

"No, you didn't. I mean, okay a little. I mean... it's not a big deal." Dustin sort of hated that he had to hide his feelings about this fiasco; He was disappointed in his brother-in-law for dropping off the map and worrying himself and Mabel out of their respective plans for the night in favor of searching. "Look, here's what we'll do: We're gonna take a cab, and we'll go home so you can get some sleep, then tomorrow morning, we'll talk about what happened." A beat. "What happened, anyway?"

"Heard... stuff I... it hurt. People like me don't deserve this."

Dustin grumbled in confoundment. "What the hell do you mean by that? People like you?"

"Past... John..."

It all clicked together. John... was a very unfortunate person to live as, as Dustin heard through talks that, as they happened, made his brother-in-law bereft in agonized shame. Dustin softened, and helped Dipper back into a better position where he could hang limp and mourn as much as he needed to. Admittedly, Dustin only knew how to comfort Mabel when she was broken up like this; Everyone else in this state was given a stoic, nervous statue, unsure of what to do, but Dustin had to admit he did good allowing an absolutely plastered Dipper wail with his chin on his shoulder like this.

Of course, when Dustin heard that liquidy burp, he scrambled to get the both of them over an open garbage can so his brother-in-law could vomit.

"Good, man. Get it out of you." All those pungent smells were starting to make Dustin nauseated, and he leaned away as much as he could get away with while still giving reassurance. "I'm not mad. Mabel isn't, either. It's all gonna be sorted out, so it's all gonna be fine."

Dipper wanted to protest, it seemed, but had to heave one final time, and afterward was too spent to do much more than groan. There was a short wait to see if another round was coming, then Dustin hefted Dipper's arm around his shoulders and hailed a cab for home.

It got surprisingly hairy near the end of the ride as Dipper started gagging again, and Dustin begged Dipper to hold it and to focus on taking deep breaths on the elevator ride up.

"Hold it. Hold it. We're almost there. Keep breathing." They stepped out of the elevator, and Dipper gravitated lurchingly towards the wall for added support.

"Everything's spinning. Can't breathe."

Dustin peeled his brother-in-law away from the wall and dragged him down the hall. "Yes you can. Gotta try harder. We're so close. Deep breaths, deep brea-oh God hold it in!" The gross warning noises had Dustin bang his fist into the door of his own home instead of reaching for his keys, and thank the stars Mabel was there to answer.

"Dipper, oh my... oh thank goodness! I-" Mabel was closing in for a hug, but Dipper pushed her to the side as he rushed for the bathroom, with her and Dustin trailing a moment later to check that he had made it. They monitored this second round of puking until it passed, then carefully guided Dipper to lie down sideways on the floor. Mabel made a quick trip to Dipper's bedroom to retrieve his blanket, and perplexed Dustin with the object cradled in her arms.

"Shouldn't we get him to bed?" Dustin asked.

"He should stay here in case he vomits again, Dusty."

Mabel held the blanket close to her briefly, then relaxed and draped it over Dipper's prone body from the chest down, making sure his arms were free. Dipper tried swatting the object off him, but overpowering sedation made his efforts weak and rapidly enfeebled him into the clutches of exhausted sleep.

"No... wanna freeze... don't... out... outside..."

"Can't let you do that, man." Dustin had quickly pieced together the droning string of half-statements for what they were. "You're gonna be kept nice and cozy and safe. And yeah, it's November, but weather's sure as hell not acting like it. You won't be able to freeze to death out there. Worst case, you'd catch a cold."

"N-no..."

"Yeah."

Quietly, Dipper accepted this fact, and drooped his body into heavy slumber while Mabel mussed sadly with his hair. It stayed like this for a while, Dipper asleep, with his sister gently stroking his head, and Dustin looking on, unwilling to interrupt his wife's actions.

"I thought he'd be, I dunno, better than this." Mabel finally mumbled. "Better off than, I mean. Was hoping that when he came back he'd be fine and happy to be back and after his heart thing it looked like he was making up for lost time and not so... well..."

"...Yeah?"

"He hasn't _been_ happy lately. He's been trying to hide it, but he's been struggling and having nightmares. You know just how hard I've tried helping him with everything lately. Been writing down what he's starting to remember in his dreams, and I call him regularly to make sure he's doing fine and making sure he's trying his best with what he's doing and junk... wanted to make sure he succeeds."

Mabel looked back down to her brother, and rubbed the back of Dipper's ear sadly, though at least Dipper keened and made an approving noise from that gentle touch. Dustin placed a hand over Mabel's own, and used a rare, gentle smile to reassure his wife.

"Mabel, I think it's a combination of him trying to do too much at once, not that I blame your brother for wanting to get back on track as quickly as he can, and his past catching up to him. You're doing amazing helping him, though, and I think once his classes end it might help decompress Dipper a little."

"They could..."

"Right now, though, we can help him try to survive this. We can't just let him try to do all of this by himself. He's just not gonna be able to otherwise."

Mabel nodded and lightly shook her unconscious brother from her new-found optimism. "You're totally right, Dusty! Even if it means we're tired, sweaty and cranky, we'll still be there with Dipper pushing his boulder with him, and he can't say no otherwise! I will not allow that, Dip! You hear me?"

"D'you think he could still be hearing us right now?"

Mabel lets go of her brother, and laughs a little relieved laugh. "Nah. He's out like a light."

"Hope so. Seems pretty rotten to talk about him while he's right here."

"Well, where else can we go? Like you said, he's had a ton to drink," Mabel moved her kind hand down to her brother's shoulder. "We should stay with him through the night so we can be sure he'll be okay."

Dustin nodded. "Sounds like a good plan. Should we take turns staying up? Rock paper scissors?"

Dustin and Mabel looked at each other, then, knowing what the other was going to do, both whipped out their arms and flashed out their choices.

"Rock paper scissors! Damn!" Dustin's scissors trembled uselessly against Mabel's rock.

"Ha! Yes!" Mabel raised her fist in the air with triumph.

"Wait, does this mean I get to stay up or go to bed?"

"It was your idea, Dusty, you should know!"

"I, well, uh..."

Dustin hated it when Mabel caught him like this.

\---

Dipper first thought that his bed felt incredibly hard and unyielding, and then that his head was hurting like hell, and lastly that his throat and mouth were so very terribly dry. When he opened his eyes he needed to squint so the piercing light showering from above would sting less. It didn't, and he groaned in his torment.

An arm was draped over his eyes, but he was realizing that the bed he was on was more like the bathroom floor. His mind was muddied by the aftereffects of last night's bender, but Dipper could only remember that had happened only because of past experiences where he would wake up in this same position. He had to thank his lucky stars though that he didn't forget a thing of his current life situation like he was prone to doing practically six days a week.

"You awake, Dip?"

"Mabel?" Dipper whispered huskily, and he felt hot embarrassment cover his face. He had done it now. He broke the promise he made. "Yeah, I'm awake. Ugh, it's like there's a desert in my mouth. Oh... oh, jeez." Dipper rolled over and, against his own desires, sat up. He kept his eyes screwed shut, and his lips sealed, until the nibbling he was doing to the inside of his lip wasn't enough to quell his growing remorse. "I... I can't believe I... wasn't thinking at all, Mabel. I'm so very sorry."

Dipper couldn't see that his sister was indeed briefly holding a light scowl towards him, before it softened to a saddened concern. Mabel was mad, felt she was in the right to be mad, but couldn't bear the thought of staying mad and upsetting Dipper; He got downright dark when he'd get that bothered, and she knew whether he overtly expressed it or not. More often, he didn't, and bottled it away until it was released in the form of near-nightly visions from the past.

It was Dipper's past she felt angered at. Not Dipper.

"Dip, I would be lying to you if I said everything's fine. It's not, but I don't want you to think we're mad at you, either."

Dipper thought what he had just heard through, sighed, and shook his head. "When I promised I wouldn't do this crap anymore, I really meant it." He got on his feet, one hand massaging his aching head, and the other opening up a cabinet hidden inside a mirror. "I should take my medicine now before I regret absolutely everything I've done in the past day."

Mabel followed her brother up while he took that important heart pill from a weekly container, then watched him watch her from the mirror. He had an air of growing disorientation that was quickly confirmed.

"Do I have class today?"

"Nah, Dip, it's Saturday."

The hand that was caressing his scalp scratched a spot behind his ear. "But it's a work day, right?"

"Not with this hangover, you're not."

"I'll be fine. What time do I w-?"

"Noon to five."

"...Did I take the p... wait, nevermind Mabel. Looks like it."

"You did, you big goof."

Mabel playfully jabbed at Dipper's ribs, and he made himself play along with Mabel's weak chuckles.

"Heh-heh... yeah, that's me. Good ol' Dip. Heh..."

"...You know, you really worried me yesterday." Mabel paused after letting out her very soft-spoken sentiment. "I was convinced you'd gotten seriously hurt or ran away-- but I mean why run away from this?-- or, I dunno, your heart exploded or..." She sighed. "Do you know what happened that made you go completely off-the-grid like that?"

Dipper bristled, and felt several pangs of self-conscious shame hit his form. Not only did he realize he had caused a lot of fear to well up in his sister, but the reason why he did what he did remained bright-as-day in the center of his mind. He swallowed, and turned his head downward and away from Mabel.

"Did I say anything last night?"

"All I know is that it was something about being John. You wanted to be cold."

"Right," Dipper sighed. "Okay. Was kinda hoping my blackout drunk self would've said enough that I could gloss over everything but, you know, this works too."

"Speaking of, Dip... you know as well as I do that the doctors absolutely forbid you to not drink anymore. It's complete trash to your body, Dipper."

"Yeah, yeah I know. I mean... like I need any more health problems, but yesterday I got overwhelmed from shame and guilt and... and those kids were right. Dealers who prey on vulnerable people for their own selfish gains need to lie down in an alley, away from normal people, and freeze to death."

Dipper sighed again, heavier this time, and wrapped his arms into each other for merely a psychological shield. To both Pines, the very harshness of that sentiment was incredibly abrasive, yet it was its truthful core that hurt the most of all.

While Mabel could only imagine what Dipper had done for survival, Dipper still remembered as clear as day the acrid, insidious, sometimes violent measures he had reluctantly employed to sell the wares he had scrabbled as freebies or as part of a larger deal simply so hunger could be staved off for one more day. He constantly wished since that time that there was a better way, and with reminders such as yesterday, wished he was nothing at all. Because what he did, objectively, was vile, no matter the reason.

Mabel tried to think hard on what to say, struggled when she couldn't think of something her brother wouldn't start to argue or refute, then wrapped a sisterly arm around his shoulders and uttered the first thing that came to mind, refutes be damned.

"Those kids don't know you, Dip."

"Funny though, Mabel. They got the whole alley thing completely right."

"But they don't know what you've been through."

"I know, Mabel."

"I... honestly can't agree that whatever you did was right." Mabel tightens her hold on Dipper's shoulder-blades. "But you feel bad, yet I know you aren't a bad person and you are seriously trying to do better. So, at least with me, I forgive you."

Dipper made no sobs when tears leaked unabashedly forth.

"...Thank you."

It would never wholly absolve the sins of the past, but Dipper still cherished the fact that there was at least one person in the world, knowing him intimately, who thought of him as a good person.


	3. Graduation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which I experiment on writing something with a more cheerful disposition and also in under 1200 words. Had to cut out a lot of fat, so to speak.
> 
> Also, maybe I should make myself write 5k words of that novel before I release any new chapters for this because boy wouldn't that be a good motivator?

Dipper wasn't quite expecting that his mouth would be dry and hopelessly sticky from his lips to his tongue to his uvula. On second thought, he wasn't expecting that the test would be hard. While, given his mental condition, he knew the GED wouldn't necessarily be a cinch, Dipper was blindsided with how difficult it actually turned out.

He's pretty thankful now that Mabel was insisting to the testing center to give accommodations based on his brain dysfunctions and mental disorders. Dipper had been entirely against the notion of needing any extra help since that possibility cropped up in the weeks before going in. He never needed such a thing, and sneered when Mabel suggested that it might be a necessity.

In the end, though, she won the argument, and in the end, the day before the test, she was arguing to the death to one of the people working at the testing center on Dipper's behalf, while he sat there, sweaty, unsure of what to say, and honestly? A little air-headed as well.

"Do you see this? This right here?! Read it!"

"I see what it says. Your brother has an amnesia-based cognitive disorder and PTSD, anxiety and other... I already allowed extra time and the use of plenty of scratch paper, what-?"

"He's gonna need someone to help him out in case literally _any_ of his problems show up!"

"I, uh, that's not a bad point, I'll give you that, though howev-"

"I'll however your face!"

Dipper used everything he was given, including having the proctor being aware of and herding him back towards the test at hand when his mind dimmed out. It wasn't a thing Dipper exactly wished to have, but he needed to admit that it turned out to possibly be a life-saver. He felt extremely wonky during the math and essay portions, and hoped since then that he did okay on it.

Mabel is across the kitchen table, opening the letter that contains his test results. She's being slow and overly dramatic, and Dipper attempts at rushing her doesn't faze his sister in the slightest in her mission in lightly messing with her brother.

"We commend you on taking the General Education Development test and taking strides in securing your personal future. Your accumulated score is... and therefore..."

Dipper doesn't like Mabel trailing off like that. "Yeah? Well? Mabel?"

Mabel somberly lowers the letter down onto the table, frowns, and shakes her head dejectedly. "Sorry, Dipper..." He shuts his eyes, and starts to go in for a pained massage of his face. "...is what I would be saying if you didn't pass!"

"What? Really? You're serious! All of them?! First try?!"

"You sure did, Dipperoni!" Mabel leaps clear over the table and wraps Dipper in one massive glomp of a hug. "Aaahhh, I'm so proud of you!"

Dipper can't stop laughing. "I passed! Oh my God, yes! This is amazing! Thank you so much, Mabel! If I went in there without all that extra help, I wouldn't have done it, but you did and... and...! Thank you so much!"

"Ha, ha! Wasn't about to let you get slowed down by yourself. You wanted to do this."

Dipper gently yet with anticipation nudges Mabel off of him and snatches the letter from the other side of the table, missing the lone paper in the back of the packet, and flips directly to the results. His beaming grin tempers slightly. "Oh! Uh... wow."

"What?"

"I literally passed the essay portion by a few points, and I just hit the passing score for math."

"Oh man, now I seriously don't regret getting you that help."

"Yeah. Yeah, I don't remember feeling too focused on either." Dipper scratches behind his ear while he ponders. "Most of the math portion was a cinch, but then I got on a question and the next time I looked at the clock twenty minutes passed. It was insane and I had to rush the rest. Then the same thing happened on the essay."

"Huh. That strange, mysterious dazing out thing strikes again!" Mabel raises a shaking fist to the heavens.

"Yeah... But you know, whatever! I passed, and now all I have to do is show these results to the school and bam! I'm in just in time for the second half of the semester!"

"Ha! Yeah!" The fist is lowered. "...Still don't think it's a good idea to take three classes in half-a-semester, though. Isn't that like taking six classes in a semester?"

Dipper shrugs. "More or less, and I completely intend to take six classes next semester, so don't try to stop me."

"Isn't that a little... much?"

"Mabel, I've wasted so much time. And while I can't entirely catch up, I can go for it as fast as I can so I can at least make up for some of it."

"What about your health?"

Dipper glances about and doesn't appear to be aware that he's placed a worried hand on his chest. "I mean, yeah, it's... gonna be hard to juggle classes with appointments and maintaining my health, but other than that, I can't let anything distract me from this."

"You... absolutely sure you can handle that?"

"Completely. Would have to not have a job so I can keep a laser focus, but you basically said me not working wouldn't be a problem for you."

"True..."

"And I don't care if I have to constantly study. I'll pass all of my classes, and I'll be damned if anything distracts me away from that plan."

Mabel licks her lips, then picks up the lone piece of paper Dipper failed to pick up, reads it for the first time herself, then faces Dipper. "What about for a graduation ceremony?"

"...Graduation ceremony?" Dipper repeats.

"Yeah. Apparently this place does that. Would you want to do that?"

"You're serious? I can... graduate?"

Mable giggles at her brother's stunned questions. "C'mon, Dip. Would I joke about something that'd mean a lot for you?"

Dipper thinks, then smiles. "Yeah. No. You wouldn't. A-and I'd love to do that. It wouldn't be a distraction in the slightest."

It'd be eight or nine years late, but that diploma would be a trophy, a testament to all the turmoil endured and survived and for Dipper, he thinks, it'd be a great ending for a sub-chapter in his life. The ending where he truly gets started. And while the ceremony is scheduled later than he would've wanted, the blue and yellow-trim cap and gown he wears in this newest photo of him and Mabel, as he holds that piece of paper in front of him, is downright stunning to look at.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, I'll however _YOUR_ face!


	4. Diagnosis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which I experiment with repetition, tenses, and ultimately fail in my third task in not hurting the children. I will try harder next time.

You don't think anyone bought the explanation for your actions.

Then again it's hard to explain how a combination of a severe episode of disorientated amnesia plus thinking you were corned by people who thought you needed to be killed led to paranoid panic, which led to you screaming at people and snatching up the heaviest, thickest book you could get your hands on. You were threatening to knock people senseless if they got close, then actually did hit several people who got within arms reach. Not with said book, apparently you had missed, but with whatever objects you could grab and toss with the one hand not sanding itself into your hurting scalp. Your head hurting like that is the only thing you can remember from the episode.

It was crazy; One moment, you were drowsily trying to pay attention and not mind what felt like bees buzzing inside your head, and the next you were pinned to a wall by security, feeling like you ran a marathon, noting that a few of the panicked bystanders within the room were commencing their wracked whisperings to each other.

You swore you only know of the rest from second and third-hand accounts and that you had no clue why what happened, well, happened.

You implored that you were so very sorry, and that your actions were those not of aggression, but of fear.

You explained you were seeing a doctor about it.

You promised it wouldn't ever happen again, and thanked everyone in the room, professor and the absent dean included, to be given one more miraculous chance.

All the while, Mabel was peeking in through a small window in the door, smiling and mouthing to you to keep going when you froze. That, and the reminder on top of your paper that you'd only be allowed back in the class by apologizing and providing evidence of your doctor visit to your professor and the dean, compelled you to finish your pleading. However, you grinned at Mabel after class and thanked her for her help after class as though she was the one impetus to this task.

In a way, though, she was. It was only through her walking you to that class were you able to brave attending and issuing an apology, albeit needing to take a seat in the corner nearest the door with a thick, green hoodie hiding your body and face afterward. She was eager to hug you when class was over, waiting patiently in a common area nearby the classroom for you to slink out. Mabel could not have been a better sister have been born alongside, though. Throughout this whole literature class debacle she has spent even less time on her paintings and other work to help give extra moral support as the two of you got to the bottom of what was going on. That was integral to rebuilding a part your shattered self-confidence, though only until you actually learn the reason of what was happening.

She was there for you giving her moral support before, during, and after every possible test that could be administered and sample that was taken. Encouragement was given while she helped you to pour through the stacks of papers describing results and pamphlets on what you can do to make your life easier. Mabel held your hand while you remained stoic and your doctor gave the official word on what's wrong with you.

No. No, you couldn't...

It can't.

You're shaking your head, but that doesn't negate the truth.

The doctor says to the two of you that the various tests has pointed them to this conclusion. When you ask how it could happen, he points out that you've had several head injuries the past few years, and while the first trauma seems to be more responsible for your general amnesia, sluggish mental processing and poor attention, it was the second injury not healing right that might have ended up causing the overall condition.

He also reassures you specifically that, based on your results and comparing them to your previous tests done during your hospitalization, the deterioration shouldn't get much worse from here on out, barring further blows and insults to your brain.

When the two of your get home, you snap out of your despair temporarily enough to start rationalizing. You know that you've heard this specific condition before, you think. You're not in denial, or surprise, but a dark cloud is threatening to conceal you. But, you turn to Mabel, smile, and tell her that it's something that can be controlled with this new prescription.

It's a mild form, medically speaking, though with unusual (but apparently not unheard of) amnesia symptoms tacked on, yet that's all going to go away soon and your memory is going to be right as rain again! You'll wake up in the morning and not forget your surroundings, have no more memory outages in the middle of the day, and have more of your past return and stay with you than now. _You're going to remember Ford_ , you tell her, and she agrees that all of these things are going to be great for you to have again.

She's smiling, encouraged by all of the moral support you're giving her, as well as your own anticipatory grin. When she's well out of perceivable earshot, going to pick up your new medicine for you, you let out an agonized shout towards these terrible new circumstances, and you bury your face into your wrathful hands.

You thought you'd never have to suffer through these ever again, but apparently you thought wrong, and your self-confidence is pulverized.

You were so done with seizures.


	5. Collapse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Dustin's character is fleshed out more and Mabel drops the f-bomb.

Dustin can feel himself shake uncontrollably and he regrets not taking his anxiolytic, the diazaepam, before he took his distraught soon-to-be wife by the hand and pointed their hailed cab to the hospital. He knows he can't breathe. He's never had this happen before. He never expected this to happen. This is a once-in-a-lifetime crisis. That is, if his future brother-in-law both lives and never has another medical emergency ever again.

He had saw the whole thing happen; One minute, Dipper was joking around, sneaking tastes of Mabel's awesome pancake batter, and then the next his body went limp and collapsed onto the floor.

"No, Mabel, Dipper is not dying. He isn... h-he probably just stood up too quickly and had a ton of blood escape from his head. H-he..." Dustin had gone to feel Dipper's pulse. "Oh God. Oh God his pulse is all wrong!"

Dustin suddenly had so many critical tasks heaped upon him that he felt only minute relief when Dipper came to. Mabel went into full panic mode faster than Dustin, then full despondence, and he had to juggle comforting her and checking on vital signs.

The paramedics arrived in about ten minutes, and Dipper had gone back into unconsciousness within five. Dustin wanted the panic to go away, but it couldn't, because once Dipper was out it felt like there was nothing that could be done except wait and hope.

His heartbeat was still out-of-control by the time the paramedics strapped an oxygen mask to Dipper's face and whisked him downstairs and outside towards the ambulance. Dustin has no idea whether or not the paramedics had injected anything into Dipper, but he learned what hospital they were taking him to, and so he and Mabel followed.

Mabel is trembling, sniffling, squeaking "I just got him back." over and over again, and Dustin can't help her any longer. His own composure has crumbled apart now Dipper's life was no longer in their hands and the best he could do now was not to break apart from the terror already experienced, if only to look like the stronger one of the two.

His raling gasping for air continues when they arrive at their destination, and continues still when they arrive at the ER's reception desk. Dustin verbally swats away the receptionist's concern that he's having a heart attack, but can't stop the pack of wolves attacking his fortitude so viciously, which hurts, because he knows as an undeniable fact that Mabel is suffering ten times worse.

He has to focus on his breathing. Just like his old therapist taught him to.

Inhale for five seconds, hold for seven, release for five, hold for seven. Inhale five, hold seven. Release five, hold seven.

Inhale. Hold. Release. Hold. Get the gut involved. Breathe deep.

Hold and tense the whole body. Release. Again. Again. Repeat. Again. Keep going.

The panic is ebbing, but it's still there and rattling away at his muscles. However, Dustin is able to put on some semblance of a brave face, and ends his prescribed exercise.

"Is... i-is it okay if I go call your parents, Mabel? Tell them what happened?"

Mabel, who had been shivering and moaning and needing anyone to come comfort her, grabs and twists at the pair of jeans she would normally use for painting, and had been chosen in haste right before the rush. "Sh-sh...should they kn-know?"

"Honestly? I don't know. Maybe? At least... they'll be kept in the loop, so if anything should happen..."

Dustin goes against the idea of continuing any further. To him, there's absolutely no need to, and Mabel takes up the invitation by his hesitantly traveling hands and holds them in place with her own.

"Do you have your phone?"

"Um... no. Can I borrow yours?" Mabel nervously lets go, pulls out her phone from the back pocket of her pants and gives the overly sparkly device to him. "Thanks. I'll try not to take too long. If anything happens, get to me. I'll be just outside where we came in."

"Alright."

It's highly disturbing whenever Mabel is quiet in this manner, and Dustin finds it hard to want to kiss his fiancee on the cheek. However, the desire to give Mabel any kind of comfort wins out against the desire to avoid his own personal discomfort on the basis of her absolute need for support. Neither of them can tell Dipper's chances right now.

Helplessness sucks, Dustin laments.

He walks with leaden morale outside, where the dawn's light has faded from its fiery orange towards a light blue all-around. It would have been a beautiful sight to behold were it not for Death's sudden knocking at their door. Dustin knows Mabel's lock code, and having access he goes to her address book and selects 'Mom & Dad', then waits. Day hasn't arrived yet on the west coast, but Mr. Pines is a light sleeper. He's going to answer first, and groggily demand of his daughter why she's calling at such an ungodly hour. It's kind of expected, despite Mabel calling the night before with the wonderful news. Mr. Pines hates being woken up any earlier than he has to.

"Hi Mabel!"

Dustin swears internally. Shit. The person who answered had to be her mom. And she sounds beyond peppy at what probably is 4 or 5 in the morning for her. This is going to be very hard. Mabel's father is more level-headed. Her mother is, well... just like her.

"Is Dipper there with you? I've just been so happy since you'd told us he came home! Little Dippy came home! I couldn't get a wink all night, I've been absolutely dying wanting to talk to him! Your father, too! Aren't you, sweetie?"

"Yeah," Mr. Pines yawns and chuckles. "Same here."

"You've been so awfully quiet, Mabel! Why h-"

"Mrs. Pines?"

The chatter is killed, and as difficult it was to interrupt, that was the easy part.

"...Dustin? Why are you calling on Mabel's phone?"

"It's... I forgot it," Dustin heaves. "We're at the hospital."

"Hospital?!" Mrs. Pines shrieks precisely like her daughter when she's panicked. "Oh goodness, what happened? Is Mabel hurt? Did she get sick? Are you sick? I do-"

"It's... it's Dipper." Mrs. Pines has been successfully struck dumb. Better to get it over with now. "He collapsed. His heart... kinda stopped working right. He wasn't looking too good when the paramedics came for him, but we're here and... and that's all I know right now."

Oh God, she's starting to cry. Dustin hears her break apart, and her husband quickly approaches and asks what's wrong. When she tells him, he goes eerily silent, then he's on the line.

"Is this right?" Mr. Pines asks, emulating the same act of feigning strength Dustin had displayed a while ago.

"Unfortunately, yeah. I took his pulse while we were waiting, and it was all over the place. I mean he came to for a little while, but he passed out again on the floor."

His voice is a breath. "He collapsed?"

A nod. "Yeah. About forty-five minutes ago."

"...Do you know if he's still...?" Mr. Pines had never sounded as quiet as he does now.

"I don't know. Told Mabel to come get me out here if she got any sort of news."

"God," Dustin can barely pick up some peculiar, tiny hiccups on the other line. "Do you know why his heart might have...?"

"I've an inkling. He kinda glossed over the fact earlier that he had been using all sorts of drugs in the time he was gone."

"...I-I see." Mr. Pines's voice steels back up. "Was he on something when he collapsed?"

"Not at all. If he was, he had to have had something very long lasting. Or took something in one of his bags while we were sleeping or otherwise something... intense..." Dustin drags out his words when he comes to a chilling conclusion. "Oh my God, was it the coffee?"

"Coffee?"

"I make super-strong coffee, Mr. Pines, and he downed a full cup of that stuff. His heart must've... oh shit... shit, shit!"

Panic has once again hit ashore. Dustin's heart is pounding, his stomach is sinking, and all he wants is to find a dark spot to hide. He fucked up real bad this time. Why must he break everything? Dustin hyperventilates and sobs, and chokes out on how sorry he is to have messed something up again.

"Dustin? Dustin, it's fine. It's okay. It's not your fault, no one's blaming you." Yet Dustin blathers on. "Dustin? Dustin! Hey, listen! Listen to me!"

Dustin stammers, then silences himself. Breathing is close to impossible. "Al-alright, wh-what?"

Mr. Pine's calm logic warbles out from Dustin's side of the line. "It might be a good idea to hang up now and get back to Mabel. If you want I can call some close family for you and tell them what's going on. They need to know this too. And if anything happens, call as soon as you can, alright? Can you do that?"

"Uh... s-sure. Absolutely. Thanks, Mr. Pines. Call Stan and Ford and that Soos guy especially?"

"Certainly, kid." That response sounds like it was attached to a brave smile. "You take care of both yourself and Mabel, okay?"

"Th-Thank you." Breathing is becoming easier to accomplish for Dustin now that a fear has been put to rest. "I'll go now. Bye."

The "End Call" button on the touchscreen is pressed, and Dustin sighs graciously, because neither Mr. or Mrs. Pines had strung him up for the possibility that he unintentionally murdered their estranged son less than a day after he'd leapt into their daughter's arms, begging for a second chance. The relief kills itself on the reminder of Mabel, though. Dustin bites and chews at his lower lip, turns towards the sliding doors, and quivers on the spot before his legs are willed to march forward, and back to Mabel.

Dustin doesn't know what to make of Mabel's face and body language. She is incredibly strung-up, her feet on the seat of the waiting room chair, but her arms only loosely wrapped around her shins, as though she is unsure of how to feel about the whole situation. Her gaze is distant, and her eyes are a tad misty. Dustin swallows a lump in his throat, and reaches forward.

"Mabes? Did anything happen?"

Mabel's initial response is delayed, but it's there. "...Doctor came up and talked to me."

"Really?" Dustin readies himself. "What'd they say?"

"First he asked me a bunch of questions, and I answered the best I could. Like, what was happening before the thing, his symptoms, his medical history." Mabel shakes her head, and slides back to a sitting position. "Does it look like I know, Dustin?! His appendix came out and he got a bunch of brain problems after watching our friend die. That's it! That's literally all I know!"

Dustin wraps an assuring arm around Mabel. "Then what? Anything else?"

"He started rattling off everything they've been finding wrong with Dipper, then asked me more questions!" Mabel growls and is downright frustrated. "I don't want questions, I want to know if Dipper's going to be alive!"

Dustin thinks the air in the room is escaping. "What's wrong with him?"

Mabel breaks away from Dustin and counts the problems on her fingers. "He's underweight, his ankle's very badly sprained, he's been concussed, his bug bites are definitely infected and are gonna make him sick, they think his liver's damaged, and they're beyond certain his heart's damaged!"

"Oh... oh Jesus Christ." Dustin shakes his head. "That's... I'm sorry."

"I just got him back." Her voice cracks under the weight. "I just got him back! And then this happens?!"

Dustin is not ready for Mabel to bury herself into him, claw at his shoulder-blades and sob in such a pained manner, but the panic he had been suffering through is boiling away into anger. He keeps himself in control of this new emotion much better than the anxiety eating away at him for the sake of his future wife, as he feels Mabel can't be aware that his anger is towards her brother for hurting her like this.

Several hours pass. Mabel rides the repeating cycle of sieving her anguish into Dustin's chest and the tired calm that comes after within this time. Not much is said, aside from gentle reassurances that this will be gotten through, one way or another.

"Pines?"

The two leap out of their skin when doctor calls out, and Mabel hesitantly lets go of Dustin as the professional approaches. Although the doctor is showing the faintest hints of a smile, both Mabel and Dustin keep themselves guarded for whatever he is about to tell them.

"It was a little hairy, but we have his heart beating at a more regular pace and his condition stabilized. That's the good news."

Mabel relaxes considerably. "Oh... oh thank goodness, thank you so much. That means he's gonna live, right?"

"So far, it's a very favorable outcome for him. No evidence of anything that would suggest long-term impairment or disability caused from this episode in-of-itself, thanks to the medicine administered on-scene, although-"

"Yes! Yes! He's going to live, Dusty! Dipper's gonna be okay!" Dustin feels his bones being crushed by the force of Mabel's enthusiastic, overjoyed, relief-filled hug, and grimaces from the pressure.

"Well, not entirely."

"What?" Mabel's arms loosen around her soon-to-be husband.

"That's the not-so-good news. He has a great chance for living, but his heart is in bad shape. We don't believe he exhibits the symptoms for heart failure, but we're thinking that he's going to need to take medications to improve his heart's function, as well as keep to a fairly strict regimen of diet and exercise, if he wants to live a full life and to delay said heart failure for as long as it's possible. And depending on what we observe on the bradycardia side of things, given what we know so far, we're going to highly recommend he have a pacemaker."

At this point Mabel has let go of Dustin, and her hands hover close to her own beating heart. "Medications? Pacemaker?"

"Correct."

"But that stuff's for old people! He's... he's gonna be 27 soon!" Dustin hears it, that certain quality to Mabel's voice, and at once he wraps an arm across Mabel's waist and splays his ears the best he can.

"That, honestly, doesn't matter."

"Doesn't matter?! I just got him back in my life yesterday, and that..." Her face and hands snarl into something that can't be described as any less than a murderous rage. "...That-that idiot had to nearly kill himself because of FUCKING DRUGS?!"

There's no need to call for Mabel to calm down from that outburst. She, like everyone else, has gone silent, though she is trembling awfully. Dustin squeezes her, reassures her that she's doing fine.

"I'm sorry. So sorry. I... I never use that word. It's a mean word. I'm... it's been a crazy fifteen or so hours, couldn't sleep a wink..." She sheepishly chuckles. "That... that does a thing to a person, you know?"

Dustin knows that Mabel knows she can't fool anyone with this act of timid deference; Mabel still has her gnarled hands contorting and squeezing into tiny fists. No doubt, she really wants to clobber something.

"When do you think I could go see him?" Her voice is disturbingly flat, and the doctor doesn't know what to make of it. Whether to trust her or give in to the possibility of this woman choking a patient out.

"Well, uh, we suppose... n-now that his heart and vital signs are are stable and normalized, he should wake up pretty soon. So, um, really, you could go see him now if you want. Uhh-"

That's all the permission Mabel needs, and Dustin has to hurry so he doesn't fall too far behind her once the number of the room Dipper is resting in is revealed. 

The door is slightly ajar, and Mabel pushes it further open, and notes that her brother is slowly stirring in his hospital bed. Dumb eyes blink towards the ceiling, a hand jerks back when it ambles up towards his chest and touches a tangle of wires that lead to a bunch of small, circular chest pads. Mabel's face steels into something terribly bitter, and Dustin latches onto her before she can barge her way inside.

"Mabel, please don't do anything rash." Dustin pleads. "You haven't seen him in ten years. He came back because he missed you. Do not burn any bridges."

Dustin's grip loosens from his wife, and she growls. "I won't, but he's going to learn a thing or two about what he's just put me through, Dustin."

Lips tighten into an I-beam on Dustin's end, but that little face he's making quells Mabel's rage only to the point where, as Dustin observes from a distance, she doesn't outright reject Dipper back into her life. Yet, she sows her own seeds of regret and shame when Mabel later thinks back to that discussion and realized that, to Dipper, she might have very well been.


	6. Symptoms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which I try to write more to-the-point lol
> 
> Right now I've only had one request for a chapter, and I'd say that's about halfway done, though I have a bit more free time now to get some more work done on it. Don't be afraid if you guys want to request a thing! I'll see what I can do with it!

The walls in this doctor's neurology office are off-white and littered in framed diplomas and certifications, which you really wish could allay your anxiety, but they don't. The reason why you're here scares you, and you're wishing that nothing is incredibly wrong with you. That's kind of hard to believe though. The people in your literature class have to be pretty damn convinced that you have serious problems after having the worst possible amnesic episode at the worst possible time.

The kicker was you have no memory of the episode in-of-itself; Your professor and some security guards and the dean had to fill you in, and you called Mabel to relay that information with clear embarrassment in your voice. And while on one hand it was to avoid the possibility of forgetting, the two of you agreed that this was the last straw in blinding assuming this problem was going to go away on its own.

The next time anything like that happens you won't be shown mercy.

When the neurologist enters the room for the first time, you can already sense that this meeting isn't going to end well, and after a brief introduction and explaining of your personal history, including a truncated account of your dangerous activities, concussion, and what you feel that had done to your mind, the doctor writes it all down and asks what the main reason you're here today.

"Well, I forget a lot of things. Happens a lot in the morning when I wake up, but sometimes I'll have moments where I'll forget in the middle of the day. Wouldn't you know it, I got an incredibly terrible lapse in one of my classes last week. Not allowed back until I can show I'm seeing a doctor for this."

"I see. Do you know what you end up forgetting?"

"I won't know where I am, what I'm doing, or... really who I am. And all of that happened in spades in class."

"Hmm," The doctor hums, twiddles his pen in his fingers, and nods. "I'm real sorry you go through that. It sounds rough. Do you forget your entire personal history?"

You shake your head. "So far, that hasn't happened. But, um... did I say that I had went under different names when I was gone?"

"...You gave a disclaimer when we sat down about fifteen minutes ago."

"Oh, uh... um... well, in any case, I'll tend to think I'm one of them. Trust me, sometimes it's really not fun. Again, literature class." You sigh, and groan. "Calvin nearly got me in deep, man."

"Mr. Pines, how severe would you say these symptoms are?"

You wonder about this question for a moment, then answer. "Pretty bad, I think."

"Hmm," The doctor peeks at his notes. "Have you noticed any peculiarities about your body? Twitching? Tics? Nausea? Headaches? Dizziness? Unexplainable change in heart rate? Sensory hallucinations?"

You give this more consideration in your hurting mind and for a short moment you feel like you're starting to space out, but you try to wrangle yourself in. "Headaches, yeah. Plus my sister keeps saying I twitch a lot more in my sleep than when we were kids, and said it happens when I'm awake too. And I'm not gonna lie, I feel pretty out of it right now."

"Really?" His pen sounds strange when he clicks it. "Have you experienced this before?"

"I don't know." Odd flashes flit across your sight for only a second and abates. "It doesn't feel new, b-but I think it's going away."

The doctor nods. "That's good, at least. Do you experience any other symptoms?"

"Um..." Did the clock jump ahead twenty seconds? "My sister brought to my attention that I kinda twitch a lot in my sleep."

"I..." The doctor does a mental double take, then makes a long, somber note. "You had already mentioned that, Mr. Pines."

The atmosphere in this office constricts considerably. Hot embarrassment flushes your face, and as they fidget you feel your palms sweat from this pressure cooker of a room. Does it smell odd in here? Somehow, that makes the doctor write with increased pressure when you ask.

"We're going to need to run some tests and take a look at your brain activity. From what I've heard and seen, there's clearly something wrong Mr. Pines."


	7. Art Therapy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which I get through terrible writer's block by just doing it.
> 
> Also wondering if I should number these in the chronological order they're intended to be in. Did I say that already? Think I might've.

Dipper wakes up in the middle of the night, jolted out of slumber by a commotion of objects collapsing somewhere outside of his bedroom. He blinks rapidly from the shock, but recovers fairly quickly and calmly, knowing that he's safely in his bedroom. However, there's a growing sense of befuddlement over his bedroom. Specifically, which version of his bedroom this is.

Dipper gets up and stumbles quietly and painfully over to a desk lamp and washes the room in a dim light. He had been half-asleep, though he still has a nervous feeling in his gullet over having another case of amnesia, and so felt the need to take in his surroundings. While he's leaning on this desk, taking care not to agitate his ankle, he notes the bed he had just slept on, a dresser, the desk he is slumped on, and various belongings that he knows for a fact are his. The furniture all looks nice and confounds Dipper before it gives him the joyous answer to his question.

"Okay. Right. Home. This is home now," Dipper smiles. "Can't believe I'm actually living with Mabel. That's just... wow..."

Dipper needs to marvel at his absolute fortuity for getting here. His chest swells up from pride, and while he still quite can't wrap his head around the past several months just yet, he knows that he really earned the right to live in this small bedroom. The right to take back his old life after tossing it away years ago. Dipper smiles from ear-to-ear, thinking about how once his ankle heals and his heart and body is well enough he is going to own up to his promises in re-establishing a good life.

When he licks his lips, though, Dipper grimaces. He would like to sleep, but he knows such a thing will be hard if he's this thirsty. So he reaches down to grab one of his crutches, and shambles to the closed door of his bedroom. When he opens it, Dipper immediately notices light coming from the living room area, and he hobbles curiously towards it, and focuses his pinprick pupils to the one person awake in the warmly-lit room.

"Mabel?"

His sister turns around in her seat in front of one of seven paintings spread out in the room, with one hand holding a paintbrush, and the other wrapped around a mug handle. She is jittery from the energy the liquid the latter object is holding. "Dip?" She drinks more of the sludge than what could be considered possible, or healthy.

"What're you doing up this late?"

She cracks a grin. "I should be asking you that. It's two-thirty."

Dipper looks at the clock hanging near the kitchen area, then shrugs. "Woke up, felt thirsty. Most likely won't fall back asleep until I get a drink of wat-Ow! Agh. Crap...!" Pained, Dipper hobbles towards the cabinets and pulls out a glass. "Should've used the boot...!"

Mabel scurries away from her painting and assists her brother in getting his glass of water, as well as a seat on the couch. His face eases when he's no longer putting unnecessary weight on a mending ankle, and Mabel enters his room momentarily to retrieve his boot, which is then hastily attached around the injured appendage.

"What were you thinking not putting this on first? You could've hurt yourself!" Mabel wants to yell, but keeps her voice down to a harsh, concerned whisper for her slumbering soon-to-be husband.

Dipper touches his forehead gingerly. "Sorry, I kinda forgot. No idea how I could forget that my ankle hurts most of the time and needs a brace, but there you go."

He chugs the entire glass of water in one go and moves to stand up, but Mabel swipes the glass out of his grasp, nudges him right back down, and fills it up again at the kitchen sink.

"You have to be more careful on that thing. It's not supposed to fully heal until early October."

"I know, but I kinda want it to get better already. Starting to feel like I'm getting cabin fever being stuck in here most of the time. No offense or anything." Dipper takes this second glass and drinks about half of it. "I mean aside from the appointments and, um, the walks, but that's not really doing stuff."

Mabel takes the glass Dipper is offering her back. "Ha-ha. Yeah, I can see that. Not really all that fun and-or personally productive and-or meaningful."

"Well, I mean... it's preparing me so I can do stuff, if that means anything." Dipper sighs, and notes Mabel's hands haven't really stopped trembling. "What did you drink? Some of Dustin's insane murder coffee?"

Dipper can't help it. It was coffee that could have very well killed him, and something he's never going to touch again, though deep down he does wonder if that stuff saved his life, in a roundabout, demented manner. At least, the heart medication to keep his heart spiraling out of control and the pacemaker to keep it from slowing to a halt are lifesavers, and the sooner he got those the better, he had ultimately reasoned after weeks of introspection. Still, calling the coffee what it is to him helps to cope with the near-death experience.

"An entire pot. Need to pull an all-nighter, Dip. Got some paintings that really need to be finished tonight."

"Gotta ship them out tomorrow?"

"Well, no. They have to dry for a few weeks. Then they have to be shipped out. Well, most of them anyway. Though maybe if I used a box fan..." Mabel squints at her canvas and leans back with a finger rubbing her lower lip thoughtfully.

Dipper stands up, supported by his crutch, and limps to a painting, one of the smaller ones, to take a closer look. He hadn't really gotten this close to any of these canvasses whenever he was home, free for the time-being from one of an endless string of various appointments for various kinds of doctors. Mabel had also painted at an angle from Dipper's makeshift nest of a couch, and while it had been getting easier to walk around, the act of hobbling about and Mabel's insistence on performing mental exercises took a lot of energy, so whenever Dipper actually had the time to look in the direction of these paintings, he simply was not aware of what he was observing.

His mouth parts ever so slightly open and he grunts out the one thing he can say about this first painting.

"A unicorn?"

Mabel laughs, albeit quietly so Dustin wouldn't be disturbed from his needed slumber. "Yeah. Turns out someone out there is even bigger into unicorns than me."

"I highly doubt it."

"Ehh," She thinks, twirling the brush in her fingers in a big circle. "Once you factor in the whole thing with the unicorn hair thing back when we were kids, I can kinda see it."

"I, um... unicorn hair?"

"Yeah. Ford wanted us to get some to protect the Shack."

"Ford. Um..." Dipper's face contorts into mild distress. "We got unicorn hair?"

"I did, Dipper. You hung out with Ford for something else. I don't know what, though. Do you?"

"...Umm..." Dipper racks his mind, but simply isn't able to access the memory his sister is referring to. Somehow, the event, whatever it was, feels like it was high intensity. There was shouting... right? Occasionally, the location of this scene flashes into subconscious, but vanishes before Dipper's conscious can retrieve it. It's a lost cause to strain. "Your unicorn looks very nice with the, um... paint glitter on the highlights. Makes the painting interactive."

Mabel frowns. "Guess not."

Dipper slumps a touch further into his crutch, and shakes his head. "I really wish I could remember anything, Mabel. Like Ford. I can barely remember anything about him. Nothing's really sticking."

"Hey. At least you know he's totally a real person now. That's something."

Dipper nods, though it doesn't quell his growing despondence. It's combated as he shuffles towards another painting, and is mesmerized by the absolute harmony of colors contained within the impressionist portrait of a gentleman, whose reference photo is tacked haphazardly to the easel itself.

"This guy's full of himself."

"I know, right?" Mabel groans. "And he wants his painting absolutely right and exactly the way he wants it and gave reams of information and art history that I already know about and always changes his mind on what he wants and also wants it in his hands in about a week so he's actually coming here to pick it up and... Ugh! Some people..."

"Yeesh," Dipper replies. "You should probably not do more paintings for that guy."

"Can't. He's a regular, and he pays stupidly well." Mabel sighs with a tired chuckle at the end. "Really wish I could, though."

"Damn. That's a shame." Dipper zeroes in on an odd-looking paintbrush, and picks it up without much thought. "I think this brush's broken."

Mabel turns to look at what Dipper is talking about, then back towards the painting. "Nah, that bend's normal. It also costs twenty bucks."

Dipper grimaces at the price, and gingerly puts the brush back into the metal tin in which it was found. "This tiny thing? Painting's expensive."

"I know, right? I think I'm getting only a few hundred dollars back on this stupid portrait that I spent a month trying to get right."

"Are all of them like that?"

Mabel shrugs. "Kinda sorta. Though that portrait's been my curse since day one. The rest, I'm glad to say, are projected to have healthy returns. That is if I didn't just curse myself right now."

Dipper laughs with his sister. "Hey, don't invoke Murphy's Law, Mabel. Look at me; I wasn't even trying but I kept running into that dumb law."

Mabel's tired eyes bore into Dipper's, though instead of saying something sarcastic, they brighten and roll. "Pssh! You're a clumsy doofus, Dipdop. That's why."

"Am not."

"Are too."

Dipper lightheartedly scoffs, and moves onto the third painting. "...Jeez, this is dark. It's really good, but Mabel, I'm fairly certain you're not the type to paint the bony remains of a... bird carcass?"

"I know. That's been my other curse." Mabel gags, and gets up from her painting-in-progress and to this particular work's pedestal. "This guy just really wants to decorate his apartment with paintings of skeletons and taxidermies. I hate it, but he's great with paying. So... I've been willing to put up with it."

"Man," Dipper starts. "How can you deal with this?"

"Not gonna lie, I can't. I have to either step back and regroup after enough time in front of his crap or puke. And I always need to have it pointed away when I'm not actually working on it, so... boop." Mabel picks up the easel and turns it around. "Enough of that. One of the other downsides of painting, Dip. Sometimes what the people want can be a little... much."

Dipper moves onto one of the larger ones, and softly laughs. "A landscape? Pssh! Looks like something that painter on TV would make."

"Yep. Pretty much. Remember when we'd catch that show and make fun of it?"

"...No." Dipper's distress creeps back up, and his increasingly keyed up muscles are evidence to this. "I... I'm really trying to remember. How old were we?"

"It was during our childhood, but I think we watched a lot of it intentionally one time when we were fourteen or so."

"Fourteen... during the school year?"

"Yeah... yeah, during winter break."

"Okay. Fourteen. Winter."

"You yelled at the guy to just paint with his hair. It became a little joke between us."

"I'm... uh... paint with his hair... I think I'm... n-no... it's... no, wait... I think I can see us watching from my laptop. We were in the living room in pajamas, but... but that's all I know."

Mabel didn't quite know why she felt a small knot in her throat when she swallowed, because she was certain she wasn't crying. Saddened by her brother's mental state, because she heard and saw this same struggle play out time and time again, multiple times a day, in the month he's been back in her life, but crying? She doesn't mean to respond by sitting back down in front of her current work-in-progress and think about how to solve a certain conundrum in adding detail to a particular area, but she really needs to take her mind off of the tattered remains of Dipper's memory.

"I really wish I could remember it all." Dipper offers. "Kinda really sucks that I can't."

"You should've thought a little more Dipper-like before making that dumb mistake." Mabel snaps, sighs, then adds in a softer tone. "I'm sorry, but that's the truth. You could've died doing that, and then we wouldn't be here talking right now."

It not meant as trying to guilt Dipper. He realizes that Mabel has been through a lot regarding both his health and whether or not he was alive through the years. She hates it whenever he tells her of another near-death experience. She attempts to not get argumentative, but rarely does she succeed, and this happens to be one of those times. Dipper's eyebrows furrow and his nose wrinkles, but decides against indulging in these negative vibes when he lays his eyes on the painting Mabel is perched in front of and noodling with by way of a tiny brush pulling out the small details she needs.

"Mabel, is that supposed to be us?"

Long hills yawn deep into the foreground. The deep blue sky harbors a warm and welcoming sun that shines down on the grassy wrinkles of the landscape. On these hills are two distinct marble paths: one is tinged gently with a rosy hue, and the other is like a mirror of what's above. Both start out, side-by-side, up and around the terrain. As they move forward, objects dot their periphery that suggest life events, both personal, such as a Santa cap with question marks embroidered in the base trim and what appears to be mouth x-rays, and shared, like a huge Valentine card made of multiple, smaller Valentine cards. They pass a triangular patch of yellow buttercups, some books, a tattered lump of a jade shirt, then the paths suddenly diverge.

The blue trail dives deep into a valley and enshrouds itself in thick mist, while the other path remains on its trajectory, but not without growing thinner, having some of its gravel tumble downhill as though mourning its missing companion. This path soldiers on, where more mementos of the past crop up, including a gaggle of mourners hovering over a lone gravestone made of the same material and hue of the lost trail.

At the crest of the nearest hill, the blue path pokes out of the fog, and where it converges with the rosy marbled path, two figures stand embraced with one another. The woman, who apparently walked down the pinkish road, hugs the man that had supposedly came from the hidden path, and he has a trail of muddied footmarks behind him, and a telltale blue and white cap on his head.

"Yeah. It is. You know that exhibition I was planning for?"

Dipper notes a certain pressure behind his eyes that releases when a faint, near-lifeless memory of words read on an old laptop's screen appears. It's not clear at first, or at all, as that blurry image rapidly zips from the bottom upwards until, as though there is a V-hold knob implanted in Dipper's skull, it stabilizes and burns into his mind's eye.

"It's... yeah, I remember seeing it in my search. I think. It's... it's hard to tell. You mean this is for that?"

"Yeah. I'm having a painter friend store the other nine pieces for me." Mabel pauses, then grins to Dipper. "Well, okay, nine pieces and an unfinished one. When you came back, the one I was working on just didn't feel right."

Dipper stares into the embracing pair. "The exhibition's... about us?"

"About you."

"...Me?"

"It was hard trying to cope with you gone. Pretty sure you figured that out when you heard about the scrapbook." Mabel gingerly giggles, and uses that optimism to fuel her explanation. "So I found myself sitting down at a blank canvas one day going 'Hmmm, now what should I paint about?', because I wanted to do an exhibition for something after my last one, which would've been in the future then. The first one, I mean. Does that make sense?"

"Kinda sorta."

"'Kay, good. So I was feeling really down that it'd been nine years since you vanished, and for my search up to then coming up empty. I began to paint and it sort of became your empty bed and space up in the attic that first night. It was cathartic doing that, so I made another, about the time one year later when I insisted to mom and dad that you were gonna come home for our 18th birthday so there... w-were two party hats. Then another, about how two years after that I'd lug around the scrapbook..."

Mabel strains to hold it all together, and Dipper can sense this change in the air. He carefully nudges a spot at Mabel's work stool, wraps his arm around her and squeezes her shoulder. "Hey, it's fine now."

"But it still hurts a lot. You were gone for so long."

"You know, this is some heavy stuff coming out of my usually bubbly sister." Dipper offers. "I'm... really sorry for putting you through all that. But I'm here now, and I'm never going to do that ever again, I promise. None of that was worth it."

As it should be this late into the night, it was quiet. Dipper's hands were filled with an empty mug of sludge, while Mabel picked up her brush and continued forth in detailing the pine tree hat.

"Maybe you should avoid working on the hat until your hands aren't shaking from all this caffeine."

"Heh. You don't remember much, but you're as observant as you ever were, Dippin' Sauce."

Dipper hands the mug back to Mabel and stands up with his crutch. "I'm gonna remember this compliment. Means too much not to be."

She scoffs. "Wanna bet ten bucks on that?"

Dipper scoffs back. "Mabel, I don't have ten bucks. I haven't had money for weeks."

"I'll give you ten bucks."

"You're gonna give me ten bucks just so you can rip it out of my poor, amnesiac hands?"

"Totall...! ...Wait, what? No!" Mabel guffaws. "Okay, your sense of humor's checks out!"

"And what the hell? You have no faith in your twin brother to remember a warm family moment?"

"Pssh! Shut up!" Mabel playfully nudges Dipper, and he does the same in return.

"No, you shut up!"

"You shut up, Dipdop!" They begin to laugh fairly loudly.

"Mabel, shut up!"

"Both of you shut up... trying to sleep!" Dustin's muffled voice drones from the closed-off bedroom. "God help the both of you if I'm sleep deprived on my wedding day..."

" _Your_ wedding day?! It's _our_ wedding day, dorkus!"

Dustin makes some noises that are some combination of a grumble and a whine, and the twins counter this with more raucous laughter, almost done to intentionally cause this poor man hell, yet still in the spirit of sibling bonding. When it dies down, their previously dour moods have risen, then settled into contentment. Mabel is the first to speak.

"You know what? I think I might be done with this one after all." Mabel steadies a hand, and makes two tiny strokes onto the canvas, and stares at her result. "Yeah. Done for real here. Does it look finished, Dip?"

Dipper scans the painting himself, and nods. "Yeah, doesn't look like more can be done on it."

"Heh. Good." Mabel snakes a hand around Dipper's waist. "Because I think with you here, I don't have to do these anymore."

And within the unusually serene New York City night, a brother and sister sit and marvel at how tremendous that simple thought truly is.


	8. Dipper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which I try writing from Mabel's perspective, and in tiny little chunks that are then strung together or something.
> 
> Fun fact: So many chapters in this are about 90% written, and yet they feel so far from done.

You want your brother to get better.

The very second he had collapsed on your kitchen floor you've since always wanted Dipper to return to full health, and you try your darnedest to help him. For the past month-and-a-half he has had more days than not going to various therapies and doctor appointments. You're wondering how in the heck the medical bill's going to turn out given Dipper only just got his new ID yesterday, and the paperwork for the insurance being shipped off minutes after that, but like a silly old number on a statement is going to deter you from getting your brother the best physical, mental and emotional care possible.

Dustin promised you he's gonna cry when the bills start coming in. He got a boop on the nose and your reassurance that you've got this. You're the successful artist, after all. It's not going to be the end of the world! You've got this!

\--

Dipper is often tired and frequently irritable, and he thinks those are great excuses to get out of your brand of therapy, but Dipdop is going to go through your specialized program whether he likes it or not!

He dreaded the moment he finished his breakfast those first weeks, because that meant that it was time for his walk, and while he knew it was super good for him, you know that it was physically exhausting for him to drag his body about on those crutches, especially in the beginning where his heart was still weakened significantly from the episode. You merely had him go down the hall and back until his crutches shook under his trembling arms and he complained about his heart feeling funny, then led him straight to the couch for a good rest until the afternoon walking session.

It wasn't long until you got him walking outside in much of the same manner, and then around the block, and after that around the block partially on his weakened ankle with some cane you picked up at a thrift shop. Personally, you had hoped you'd get him walking on both feet perfectly before the wedding, but he could hobble about on his own for decent amounts of time and not be tired or badly pained, and that was good enough for you.

Between that, and after dinner, you would lead him to the kitchen table for, what you call it, brain therapy. Dip's been more willing to participate in this activity, and you could see why. He's aware that he has memory loss and you've seen that pesky amnesia crop up a lot, so he's more agreeable to memory match and playing brain training games than he is with the notion of physical therapy.

You saw his lost eyes analyzing the common area from the couch, or otherwise have seen his eyes become confused and his body language tense and uncertain of his surroundings, although you've noted that you're his anchor, so to speak. It's honoring and a little delightful despite all your time spent apart. Dipper knows who you are by instinct! You thank that photo he carried around that he can recognize you quickly, and when he does he starts to remember where he is and sometimes what he was doing.

Apparently that doesn't happen when he's alone or with Dustin, and by your new husband's testimony, Dipper becomes further disorientated, anxious and some degree of aggressive when Dusty's around. It takes Dipper a while to understand and recall in those times.

It's very sad and frustrating. Unlike his physical therapy, this mental therapy simply isn't working as well. But you don't tell Dipper that. You smile and tell him he's doing great, and maybe he knows you're lying, though the kind words and encouragement should help like it does with his heart and foot. However, you swear something's wrong, but you can't figure out what for the life of you!

\--

You like that Dipper likes his room. Mom was able to tell you how firm Dipper's mattress back home had been, so you made sure his mattress here was exactly the same, and you're pretty sure he noticed the first time he put his tired bones on that soft surface. He's amazed at the quality of the furniture, the fact that he has furniture, that he has clothes, that he has a room and place to live...

It's concerning.

You wonder to Dustin at length before bed some nights about your twin's living conditions the past decade. That month on the streets searching for you wasn't the only time Dipper's been homeless, and he's probably had years dealing with bad environments that might as well been even worse for him than that.

It's worrisome remembering that sleeping on the couch had been the most comfortable Dipper had been in ages. You've slept on it before; It's not comfortable. Your brother was probably in many unstable environments. Heck, one is too many by your count, and Dip had to be constantly on his toes as to whether or not he'd be sleeping in the same place as he did the night before, or if there was a breakdown and he had to hit the road for another place to live, or worse, sleep on the street.

No one should have to live like that, especially not your brother.

You're glad then that he's comfortable and happy and somewhere stable for once. When he's allowed to just chill out about the apartment, Dip's decidedly not stressed in the slightest. His throaty laughter rings through the apartment often. He's happy, and laughter's great medicine for his heart.

Right now he needs his rest, his time to think about his future, and to just simply be.

\--

Today, you arrive home after completing your list of errands, and drop your grocery bag by what is seen. Dusty's huddled in the corner, eyes wide and his body utterly pale and sweaty. He's completely paralyzed, save for the pressured burbling under his quick, shallow breaths and his near-violent tremors. You rush in to Dusty's aid, never having seen him have a panic attack this bad in a long time.

"What's wrong? Dusty? Can you hear me? Can you tell me how many fingers am I holding up? Dusty, you think something's super wrong. What is it? Dusty, please!"

He can't tell you; Nothing of what he's murmuring makes any sense! That was always the one thing you could count on him still being able to do, no matter how detached from himself and reality he'd get! He has to be force-fed his anxiety medicine, though in hindsight one pill would've worked perfectly fine instead of three.

In ten minutes, his body loosens, and the trembling and rapid breathing slows. Dusty is still incredibly sweaty, though as the color returns to his cheeks his noises begin to coalesce into meaningful words.

"We're doomed. We're doomed. This is it. We're finished. We can't fix this."

"Dusty. Can't fix what?" You pull Dustin up from the ground, and lead him over to the couch so he can lie down. "Deep breaths. Take it slow."

Dustin does what you're asking him, sort of. He inhales, then exhales his words. "Hospital bill. Very big number. There's no way we could... no way... oh God!"

You need a moment to understand. "Hospital? Dipper's bill? You mean that, right?"

"Yeah. It came in. We're never gonna be able to pay... ohhhhh..."

Dustin curls into himself and into the backrest of the couch, but he's not going to completely shut down anytime soon. More like succumb to the sedation from being over-medicated, but until then anxiety will keep its savage hold on him. You glance to the kitchen table and see the thick packet of paper on top of the ravaged remains of a tiny envelope, and walk towards it with a kind of cautious demeanor.

"We could, Dusty. Might take a while, but we can do this." You blindly take the packet and head back toward your husband. "It's not like we can actually be scared by a big number, Dusty. We can probably make a deal to, I dunno, pay a certain amount towards his bill each month. And besides... my brother's been given back to me, and I love him so much that it doesn't matter how much it'll cost in the end to get him completely one-hundred percent. He's still far from well, I get that, but he's running about getting his life together as we speak, and his doctors are impressed with how much better he's doing." You sit down in the empty space on the couch and sigh lightly. "With that being said, Dusty, how much is i-?"

You see the number, and like your husband beforehand, all the blood escapes your face, and you tremble, and that sensation that you're going to die cascades in.

"Dustin." When you find your voice it's flat and quiet. "I'm gonna need one of your pills before I scream and have a total freak out because this NUMBER OH MY GOD!"

It's your husband's turn to drag you away from pandemonium. Once you're placated, he's easily suggested towards taking a sick day and going to bed with the bill in hand. He's in zero shape to work being this drugged for an attack this deep. You're socked yourself, but it's a necessity to keep Dipper in the dark about it all. He can't know anything's wrong.

Not long after that Dipper returns home. You smile and give him a tight hug, and having had a rough day, he's excited with the idea of cheating on his strict diet tonight in favor of pizza. The lie you give was that Dustin had eaten some bad leftovers and was sleeping it off, and Dipper falls for it completely. The truth is, despite dipping into your own husband's medication, your nerves are decimated.

That night, long after Dip dozed off from his studying, you retire to bed yourself, and hold onto Dustin's limp hand tight.

It was a very big number. You're going to have to pull off a number of amazing paintings, not one or two or three like you pretended it'd take.

You've never had this at all.


	9. Note

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not to take it lightly, but why do all of my Gravity Falls fics contain suicide in one form or another? Maybe I should do some writing experiments in not torturing characters so much.

You're at a dead end.

Nothing that you wanted for yourself has come to fruition.

Work is infrequent and always ends in you being let go for one reason or another: you're forgetful, your heart and brain issues scare employers off, and flashbacks and amnesia attacks destroy your attempts, sometimes. before they even started. If that isn't a testament to how terribly your damaged brain is screwing you over, with its memory and learning impairments, epilepsy and all, then school and your perpetual failing certainly does.

Not even owning a pet ended well for you. "Why did that have to happen?" is a question too frequently asked to Mabel, Dustin, and to your bedroom ceiling, maybe. Why did a police car have to start blaring its siren right behind you? Why did you have a rapid, intense vision yourself behind the wheel with a pack of police cars behind you? Why did the carrier's door lock fail when you dropped it? Why did your cat run straight into traffic?

...Why did all of that have to happen?

You simply want to show that you haven't forgotten a thing. But that's impossible. It's gone forever. You're pretty sure you don't want to go back for a third term. Could you attempt one? You've been placed on academic probation, but they know you're seriously trying your hardest, and you want to prove that you can catch up and succeed.

Yet, your depression has become too crippling, and your obsessive, dark thoughts are overpowering. You absolutely bombed the calculus final exam. You eventually dropped literature because you couldn't handle attending after that terrible amnesia incident painted you as a psychopath. You were flunked out of your history class for dozing off once too many times, for God's sake! Gym was your one saving grace from a perfect abomination of a term GPA, but that class was merely taken for your well-being, and means little outside of keeping your heart strong.

This wasn't in your plans. And now you're curled up under the sheets in your dark room, fervently wishing to be well and healthy and not like this until your weeks and months of growing despair finally break you and you cry out.

Your sobbing is loud. You're alone in the apartment, so you let yourself wail into your pillow. This is pathetic of you. You wish you could be doing literally anything else than cry, but, again, there's nothing else that could be done. For nearly a year, you've been trying so incredibly hard to, as your sister puts it, be the best Dipper you could be.

But apparently, your past just simply refuses to die. The past cannot be escaped from. You have the medications for your brain and heart to prove it. You have the constant leech of your seizures stealing away your efforts and making them for naught. It doesn't matter if they're controlled; The side effects feel just as bad and, wouldn't you know it, include amnesia. You don't want amnesia, or temporal seizures, or heart arrythmias, or any of what's holding you back.

It seems silly and a little selfish to think of it like this, but all you want is to know how to do goddamn calculus. Like you used to.

Wailing calms into sniffling whimpers, and done not a moment too soon. You hear your sister and her husband come back home after an evening out. They're giggling, and Mabel mocks and teases lightheartedly before a yelp emanates from, you assume, Dustin. Sounds like they had a good time, and unless they were planning on doing something more, are most likely turning in for the night.

That thought, the one where you realize that both Mabel and Dustin have happy, productive lives, and you are a pathetic leech on them, sends you back down the bottomless pit, and immediately their attention is piqued. You're able to wrangle yourself back to light blubbering, grab onto a ledge, but it doesn't stop Mabel from entering your room.

"Dipdop? What's wrong?" She's concerned, and you think she's low-key worrying that the worst-case scenario of having a blood clot getting lodged in your brain had come true.

"N-nothing. It's nothing. I'm... fine, okay?"

"Dipper, no. You're not fine." Mabel cuts right through to the truth of the situation. "You've been falling apart the past few weeks." She waits for you to say anything at all, but you're silent. "I'm... I'm sorry we exploded at you yesterday. We were tired and worried. After all that's been going on with you lately, how could we not? I mean... you stole a hundred dollars from us, took that... that drug of yours, then completely vanished for two days."

That conversation had been the worst one you've had in a while, considering you've been having terrible conversations with doctors and professors. They had made you sit down at the kitchen table the second you stumbled out of your room with a nasty hangover that had started by a single Neon dose.

"Dipper, I know you've been down-in-the-dumps about completely bombing school. But you tried, and your professors were all supportive. Well, all but one big huge jerk, but other than him they all know you want to succeed, and are willing to put in the extra work with you."

When it had kicked in your heartbeat sounded so warm in your ears that you were sweating. It made you giggle, and it felt so good to laugh that it was self-stimulation. And that thought in-of-itself led to more laughter, and oh God it felt so fucking good to laugh that you kept going. In fact, everything felt good, and everything in your room was so large. And you felt tiny but it was some inexplicably good type of tiny. In this massive expanse of a universe, you're merely a speck.

"Then you lost your last job and it's, well... no surprise that you started coming home late with those smells on your breath."

You were so infinitesimally small that nothing could stand in your way; You'd just pass on through that wood door and take the world by storm, and not even your sister nor her husband could stand in your way. They tried getting you to sit, shouting at you to stop laughing, to stop talking nonsense, to not run off, but you did none of that and went on a Neon-fueled liquor bender before anyone could stop you.

"And then you spent your days cooped up in your room, sulking and being sad and... well, you remember that Dustin swept your room and found those empty bottles. We're still sorry we did that when you were away. Should have been more upfront with our worries."

Mabel could not contain her anger for long, and neither could Dustin, as they aired their grievances with you. It was known time and time again that you were better than what you've become. It was made clear that they were stressed out from your decline.

They were trying to help, but like they said, you'd remained defiant and unlistening and simply adamant in accepting any form of personal responsibility and self-respect and, "I'm sorry," Dustin huffed. "But if you want to prance around feeling so sorry for yourself that you're drinking and using drugs and practically ready to shoot up at this point, yet need *us* to bail you out of your problems, then...! Then..." 

And Mabel completed his thought. "We think you need a ton of help Dip. But it's hard to want to help you if you're stealing from us and making us worry night after night. You don't call or text, and you sleep all day and skip meals and medication. You're getting yourself very sick again and I'm getting real tired of this! Help yourself or so help me, Dipper, maybe you should go live with our parents! That is, if they want your sad sorry butt back!"

Now, you shake your head, those words the only clear memory you've had the past several days. "Am I supposed to apologize for being like this, though?"

You had turned around in bed to face your sister, yet Mabel did not answer you immediately, or really give you an actual answer to the question posed. Instead, she sat herself down at your desk chair, and nudged herself towards your bed.

"I thought I lost you again those two days where you were gone, and I was so relieved when the cops found and brought you back home. It wasn't fair to say those things to you yesterday. Again, we're so very, truly, ultra sorry."

This conversation pretty much ends on that note. The simple thought is allowed to hang into your mind, and you don't respond. Whatever little movements you would have otherwise attempted die halfway through their twitching.

"Think about where you should go from here, and I really hope you get better soon, Dipper. I just want you to be happy again."

"Whatever. Sure."

It hurts to blow Mabel's words off like that, and not too long after Mabel reluctantly leaves and shuts the door behind her, you ball up and sense electric pressure somewhere around the center of your head accumulating. This is going to be another refractory seizing, but you're not going to get up to take the medication that could mitigate it, unlike for your necessary heart pill. Like the others you've had the past several days, you're simply going to let it wash over you.

Logically, mentally, you know Dustin and Mabel realize they messed up badly. They're aware they made it look like they had abandoned you and, though needing to take care of themselves and destress by going out, wish to make things right again. Emotionally, however, the words uttered now have the consistency of smoke, and whatever actions they plan on taking with you are likely going to be mirrors.

When it hits and knocks out most of your awareness for a few minutes, you've never felt so alone and unwanted. The amnesiac daze that follows is almost a blessing. Yeah, you're exhausted as hell, but that makes the bed you're on so much more inviting towards taking a nap on, and you're unsure why you feel abandoned, and your dreams are full of emptiness and self-hate, but at least you're ignorant why these feeling exist until you wake up and it comes flooding back.

The clock on your desk reads 1:07, then 1:08, 1:09, 1:10. The minutes tick upward while your self-worth plummets. Abandonment. They hate you. They want you to shape up or ship out, and you sure as hell can't shape up. It's something you're physically unable to do. That's a proven fact. Yet, you don't want to go back out into the world as a nameless drifter. It's probably not possible either, given your health. You'd eventually die out there without your heart medicines. Two days and all that Neon had made it tachycardic.

You sit up, stand on your feet for the first time in almost a day, and root around your desk drawers for a notebook to tear some paper out of, as well as a pen for writing. There's only one clear thing for you to do now, and it pains you to do this, but it pains you more to keep going on as a complete failure. A wreck. An unlovable idiot.

You go into the kitchen, sit down at the table, and get to writing. Once the note-writing starts, it's difficult in you to find a way to end it after you jot down the reasons why you're doing this, and for the first time in weeks, and without a high to help, you laugh, although so flatly that it doesn't necessarily count, and quietly so you don't wake anyone. Historically, you've been good at explaining the how and what and why of situations, and you've been getting some semblance of better regarding feelings, but when it comes to final thoughts, of wanting to find the right words to comfort your soon-grieving sister, you're apparently terrible at it.

Maybe you don't want to say goodbye. You know what this goodbye would mean. Running. You're running away from your current life, and problems it has accumulated, in the most permanent manner possible. It's difficult to think about how it's all come to this.

Bad luck, perhaps. 

You give up, and simply write that it's not anybody's fault for this except your own. That you should have lived with a little more prudence before coming back home, so that maybe your health problems wouldn't be holding you back like they are now. And that you love your sister from the bottom of your heart, and that you're so grateful for her unending kindness throughout all of this.

The note is signed and left on the kitchen dining table. You slowly open their bedroom door, being careful not to go so slow that the door hinge creaks. Mabel and Dustin are fast asleep, arms curled around one another, snoring quietly and having nice dreams. Shame they're going to wake up to a nightmare reality.

Padding your way closer, you stop and hover over your sister. It'd be too dark to see her were it not for the city's ambient light leaking in through the windows. You stare at her calm face, and fold your hands apologetically together at waist height for a moment.

"I'm so sorry. But I can't do this anymore, Mabel. I'm gonna miss you."

A silent goodbye is uttered to her, then you tiptoe backwards, and close the door a touch harder than you wanted, but it didn't appear to bother them, so whatever. When you leave the apartment, it's done just as slowly. A part of you doesn't want to do this, but most of you wants an end to this sad, pathetic version of you.

"God... Can't believe I'm actually going through with this." You sigh. "I'm... I'm sorry."

The hangdog aura of defeat shuffles alongside you when you enter the elevator. Once the button for the ground floor is pressed, you fold your arms protectively across your shoulders and lean into the left wall of the carriage. It's hard to truly grasp what the whole point of killing yourself is going to make, but you can sense that tarry pitch consume you in self-destructive thoughts and make it downright impossible, as you're being transported downward, to think of anything other than your imminent demise.

You want to do this. You want this pain to end. You need all of your problems to stop.

It.

Needs.

To.

Stop!

"Dipper! No! Please!"

You're startled out of your mind when the elevator door opens and before you could think to walk forward Mabel practically pins you into the back of the elevator. Dustin pokes a frazzled head into the carriage, then places a hand carrying the note you had written over the door slat. How on Earth did they intercept you within two minutes of leaving? Goddammit, did you really close their bedroom door that hard?

"Dipper, please don't do it! What on Earth are you thinking?! I love you! Why?!"

You're stammering. It's beginning to dawn on you that you were just about to make a terrible mistake.

"Dip, you know I love you so much! You're my brother! I know you're struggling! Things look bad! You want to become a better person but so many things are holding you back! You want to not be sick and have all these problems, but this isn't going to solve anything and I just want you to know that I love you and that I'm so sorry if I wasn't paying attention to what you needed as well as I should and... D-Dipper, why?!"

Mabel is crying so very hard. You look back to Dustin and it looks like he's powering through a mild panic attack by disconnecting from the situation entirely. Both of them are extremely pained right now and it was all because of you.

You join Mabel in sobbing, reciprocating the protective hug she had ensnared you in, and apologize over and over again, until saying sorry becomes stale and you start to babble on about how tired you are. How you just can't do what you had been able to a long time ago and how you can't remember stuff that should seem so obvious and... and... you really want to go into a deep, dark, endless sleep.

"We'll help you, Dip." Mabel whispers, and leads you out of the elevator. "You're gonna be okay. We're gonna help you. You don't have to deal with this alone. You don't need to run anymore. We're gonna do whatever it takes to make you feel like you can be the Dipper you want to be."

These words have been uttered before, but right now you don't care. You're checked out. "I want to sleep. I'm so tired. I wanna sleep."

"We'll take you where you can get plenty of sleep and when you wake up you'll feel completely rested and ready to try again. Sound like a plan?"

It's a childish way to put it. You know where she's talking about. You don't care about either. "Yeah. Please."

And with that, you are led with two pairs of strong arms outside, unsure if you can wake up but willing to try for the sake of your sister, because Dipper had once again vanished from her life, and you will do anything to have him return to her once more.

Just because you feel abandoned doesn't mean Mabel has to feel the same.


End file.
